Access....DENIED!

A few years back I went to Dad's house to help him with his computer. I quietly giggled when it came time for him to login to some online system and he had to pull out his printed Word document that had a list of all his login names and passwords. "Daddy," I said to him, "if you just make all the names and passwords the same, you don't have to have new ones to keep track of." After all, I was in the IT field, and it worked for me for years.

Then, the systems started to change. They required my password to change every 90 days, and you can't use the same password twice. As I signup for new online systems, they require my login name to contain letters AND numbers, thereby throwing off my process as my old logins didn't have numbers. I have three logins for my work computer and all of them have different requirements for my usernames and passwords, and they all expire at different times. One of them requires that your password not contain any word in the English dictionary, so I had to use my old password and cut it in half with numbers.

Now I have a list of logins about 30-40 long that I have to keep updated and current, lest I have to click on the dreaded "Forgot your username/password?" link. And all I can do is sigh and update my list.